Student/Teacher/Performer/Admirer: A Correspondence with Ramona Kelley of Twyla Tharp Dance

Many years ago, dancer Ramona Kelley was a student of mine in a teen modern class in Berkeley, California. Over the years, it has been exciting to see her head off to college at NYU and then launch into a professional career. Ramona merges technique and joy onstage and is magical to watch. Knowing that she will come full circle and be back in Berkeley in October 2015 to perform with Twyla Tharp at Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, I thought it would be fun to correspond over a few months prior to the performances. This correspondence, shared on the blog, offers a window into the world of Twyla Tharp as well as following a young and talented dance artist based in New York City.

Ramona Kelley is originally from California, where she began her training at Berkeley Ballet Theater under the direction of Sally Streets. She is a National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (NFAA) scholarship award winner and she holds a BFA in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Ramona danced the principal role "Betsy" in the North American/Japanese tour of Tharp’s “Come Fly Away.” A current member of Twyla Tharp Dance, she has also worked with Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, Oakland Ballet Company and The Phantom of the Opera 25^th Anniversary Tour among others.

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This week from Ramona:

Rehearsals for Twyla Tharp's upcoming 50th Anniversary Tour seem to be speeding by – we have less than two weeks before we leave for Dallas to open the show. I am happy to say that thanks to our genius leader, we will be well prepared.

Twyla expertly runs all of our rehearsals – six days a week, 10am to 6pm. We typically run both pieces after company led class, and then have a note session with Twyla. I am always amazed at her ability to run through corrections for each small section without writing anything down as we dance – she knows the works intimately, and knows exactly what we need to hear to continue to make each moment stronger,more perfect, more exciting… Twyla also keeps meticulous video recordings of our rehearsals, which she sometimes consults after the workday and comes back in the next morning with additional details from a second viewing. The majority of us have worked on these two new pieces for over a year, and it feels great to be able to dig deeper into the material each time we revisit it. It feels like slipping into a piece of clothing that becomes more and more comfortable as it is worn in.

Showings play an important role in our rehearsal process. It has been really exciting to introduce the audience's character into the room, and I think we will feel more at ease on opening night having "practiced performing" on a number of occasions here in New York. In a recent showing for our family and friends (as opposed to critics or donors), Twyla let our audience in on a special treat – a "stop/start" of both pieces. We ran certain sections, then stopped to get notes and make adjustments. It was illuminating to work out kinks in front of an audience – definitely a good way to get rid of any performance jitters – and I think our spectators enjoyed seeing Twyla in action.

Of course, there are still many elements we will need to deal with when we get onstage for tech rehearsals. Santo Loquasto (who has worked with Twyla for years) designed the set and our incredible costumes – very elegant for one piece and outrageously fun for the other. The addition of certain curtains/drops and scenic elements, combined with James Ingalls's lighting, will most certainly provide unforeseen challenges. But thanks to well planned rehearsal periods and hard work, I think we are ready to take the next step onto the stage.

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